Chapter 5: Ace Of Cups

Marriette woke with strange warmth at her back; an arm came around and held her gently. A vision of her father dropping his belt hit her, and she sat up with a gasp. A man slept beside her. She tried to get away, only managing to tangle herself in the sheets. Her struggles woke Torrance who rolled away from her flailing hands. That freed her to fall out of the bed with a thump. He came over to help her to her feet. She stared at him for a moment before recalling the wedding, and started to giggle.

"Not quite the awakening people expect after their wedding night," she said, and again caught a brief glimpse of sadness before Torrance smiled in his turn. He turned her around to face the mirror.

"See how beautiful you are?" he said. "Doubt that the sky is blue, doubt that winter is cold, but never doubt that you are beautiful." He stepped away from her and removed the remains of his wedding finery, considerably more wrinkled than the day before. He stood behind her naked. "I have seen you. If you will look upon your husband, you will see what a poor bargain you got."

Marriette turned and looked at Torrance. His face held painful vulnerability, but she forced her eyes down across his strong chest and stomach. A brief flash of her father standing over her made her eyes jump to his legs. His right leg was straight and muscular; his left was twisted and thin. She marveled that he could use it at all. Marriette looked him in the face again, here might be a friend, if not truly a lover.

She touched his face.

"I think you are gentle, and strong," she said, "I would dearly wish to be with you as wife and husband, but there is too much ugliness in me yet. I am sorry. I will understand if you send me back to my father."

"Heavens no!" Torrance said. "You are my wife, the archbishop himself said it. We will find our way, together. Yet, may I ask that we get dressed? As much I enjoy watching you, it is...distracting."

The servants came in a while later and found them wrapped in soft robes laughing and talking. They set the breakfast tray down and slipped out again.

So started the new pattern for Marriette's life. She slept beside Torrance in the huge bed then woke to stare at his masculine body. As hard as she tried, she couldn't get past the memories of her father. Yet other feelings started flowing through her veins. Torrance told her so often that she was beautiful that she almost believed him. Even if passion didn't awake in her, she found that she looked forward to spending her day with this man.

She filled the rest of her days with learning to run the old house that the leBraun family had called home for generations.

"Anna," she called to her head housekeeper.

"Yes, Mistress."

"I feel like having greens with dinner today. Perhaps Cook could send a couple of girls down to the market to find some."

"Certainly, I will ask her." Anna bustled away while Marriette walked through her home.

Only a few weeks, and I am more at home here than I ever was at Father's house. She pinched dead blossoms off houseplants as she passed, and occasionally rearranged the placement of ornaments. The only thing she never touched was the small painting in the front hall of a woman holding a baby. It had a black scarf draped across the top of the frame. Anna had told her once that they were Torrance's first wife and his son. He never talked of them, just as he never mentioned the awful wound that had crippled him.

All his staff adored him, and that fondness transferred to Marriette.

"My Lady," Anna said, "the cloth merchant is here with samples for the East Room. He'd like you to approve his selection. She led Marriette to the small room being done over as a guest room for Torrance's people visiting from the estate in the country. The cloth merchant had fabric laid out on the bed.

"Here, my Lady," he said, "this isn't the finest fabric available, but it's sturdy and will be welcoming."

Marriette ran her fingers across the fabrics; one had a smooth texture which kept calling her fingers back to it.

"My lady has fine taste," the merchant said. "I included a bolt of fine fabric so you might know the difference. The other is good enough."

Anna stood in the door with a slight frown on her face. Was the frown for the fine fabric or the cheap? Marriette closed her eyes and went over the bolts one more time. If she had traveled into the city to do business with Torrance, she'd want to sleep next to the smooth texture of the fine fabric. Why not treat all visitors as important?

"This is the count's home," Marriette said. The frown on Anna's face eased slightly. "All the rooms should be suitable for the count or any guest he invites. We will use the finer fabric."

Anna smiled now and nodded.

"Of course, my Lady," the cloth merchant's face turned pink as he pushed the other bolts aside.

"You had my lord's interests in mind," Marriette said. "I am not upset, let us discuss colour...."

As the days passed, the best thing Marriette discovered - in this house she wasn't invisible. The servants didn't bow and cringe as the servants in her father's house did when he passed them. Instead, they smiled and nodded.

She found her way to Torrance's office. Marriette had never known her father to do any work other than scheming for more power. Torrance spent a great deal of time looking over the accounts of his city house and, more importantly, his estates to the south.

"They work hard so we can live easy," he said. "They deserve my attention. I will take you there in the fall and show you off. Look at the estimates for the harvest." Marriette went over the reports with him until they were called away for lunch. They laughed and joked through the meal, a strange but welcome experience.

One morning, while she was supervising the arrival of supplies, Marriette discovered Joan with her board checking off the order as it was delivered.

"Joan!" she said. "How are you?"

"So, you are married now," Joan didn't seem as confident as last time they met.

"My father arranged it."

"But you are happy."

"Yes," Marriette said, "I am happy."

"I'm glad for you," Joan said, "I truly am. It's just...Arthur hasn't shown up. He's never been gone this long before and Father is beside himself with worry."

"I'm so sorry. Torrance will ask his people to keep a watch for him."

"He will look for your old boyfriend?" Joan asked.

"No," Marriette said, "for the brother of a new friend."

Torrance was glad to help out his young wife's new friend and descriptions of Arthur went out with the people who travelled back and forth between the city and the leBraun estates. Joan became a regular visitor at Marriette's home, bringing not just needed supplies but someone for Marriette to talk to. Joan rearranged her schedule of deliveries so they could share tea.

One day, Joan showed up red eyed and silent.

"What is it, Joan?" asked Marriette. "I can see something is bothering you. You've hardly said two words all afternoon."

"You'll think it's foolish."

"Hardly."

"Wait here," Joan said, and went out to the wagon. She came back holding a boot. It was moldy and torn, but hardly the subject for tears. "I just found this on a rag picker's cart. He told me that he found it on the riverbank just downstream from the bridge to the Broken Dog. I think it is Arthur's. He had a pair of custom boots that he was ridiculously proud of. See, here is the marking on the side. It is supposed to be a wagon wheel. I always teased him that it looked more like a pie." Joan dropped the boot and burst into tears.

"Where did they find it?"

"It was in the river. When Arthur disappeared, it was in spring flood. If he had drunk too much and fallen into the river he would never survive. More than a few people have drowned in that river."

"I am so sorry, Joan."

"What is the upset?" Torrance asked, coming into the room. "Anything I can do to help?"

Marriette showed him the boot and explained Joan's fears.

"That's a bad stretch," Torrance sighed and handed the boot back to Joan. "I can ask if the river walkers found anything after the river dropped. I know it isn't what you want to hear, but at least you will know." He left to return to his office and send a secretary out on the grim task.

"How are you doing?" whispered Joan when the door had closed. "He was your lover."

"No," Marriette said, "he was never a lover. It might have been easier if he were. Then I would have enjoyed the sin my father accused me of."

"I've heard whispers that you were assaulted by Wagoners." Joan shook her head. "They say that is why you were married off to a lesser house."

"Don't let Torrance hear you call his house 'lesser'. The Wagoners brought me home with my virtue intact, if not my reputation." Marriette sighed bitterly. "It wasn't them."

"One of your father's servants? Why would he protect...." Joan saw Marriette's shaking head and the tears. "My God, Marriette, he didn't!" Marriette nodded her head and burst into tears. Joan clung to her and added her own sobs. Torrance came to the door, but left again without speaking.

"Have you told him?" Joan asked a long time later.

"I couldn't. I can't. He would hate me."

"I don't think he has it in him to hate you, but he deserves the truth."

"You're right." Marriette dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. "He's been more than understanding. I'll try."

Joan left soon after carrying the boot and its sad news to her father.

Marriette planned to talk to Torrance that night about her father and what he had done to her. Maybe Joan was right, maybe if I tell him then the awful visions won't come between us anymore. She hurried off to find her husband.

She found him in his office holding a letter with a look of wonder on his face. When he saw her, he came around his desk and hugged her. Marriette stiffened as she always did, then deliberately relaxed into his strong embrace. She held him for a long time and breathed in his slightly musty scent.

"You need to get out of this office more," she said into his shirt. "You are beginning to smell like it."

"Speaking of getting out more," Torrance let her go to show her the letter, "we have been invited to the Summer Ball at the palace. I think the king is taken with you. He specifically asked for you to be there." He was so pleased that Marriette let him sweep her off to the dress shop immediately, leaving no time to talk.

Somehow, there was never a good time to talk. Evening was too close to bedtime, and even knowing Torrance would never hurt her, going to bed with him was a battle with black waves in her head which threatened to drown her. He let her get changed by herself and only came in when she was ready, but as many nights as not she shivered in the bed fighting visions of her father.

Mornings were better, but Marriette loved the warm casual chat over breakfast and couldn't face despoiling it with the horror of her reality. The rest of the day was caught up in managing house and estate. There was little space, or privacy, for the opening of hearts. Now preparing for the Summer Ball took even more time.

All excuses Marriette admitted when she woke in the night beside the warmth of her husband. The truth was she feared his reaction. She couldn't bear being shut out of his life. But how could he still welcome the evil person she was into his home?

The longer Marriette didn't speak the harder it became to imagine what she would say. She convinced herself it was better this way. So she kept her silence.

Torrance reported that no body matching Arthur's description had turned up along the river. Joan's father refused to believe that Arthur was dead without a body. He had told Joan that he was sure he would feel if his son were dead. Poor Joan was torn between her father's hope and her own certainty that her brother was gone. As the Summer Ball approached, there was less and less time for the young women to talk.

The dress Marriette was wearing to the ball was a lush gold fabric with more lace and pearls and fancy work than Marriette imagined possible. She loved it, even though it made her feel guilty. Since she helped with the accounts, she knew what it cost.

"You could feed a village with this!" she said one day to Torrance.

"Well, let's sell it and find out." He laughed at the face she made. "Look, you help me with the accounts, so you know what these figures are." He pointed to the ledger.

"That's the cost for maintaining your estates and the land around them."

"Right, but it isn't just maintenance on fences and such." He flipped through the book. "Here, last winter a storm dropped a huge amount of snow all at once. Being farther south they aren't used to those loads and a roof collapsed. This is what it cost to fix it. Over here is our payment to the list that the parish has to make sure that everyone gets enough to eat. Here is the bonus we paid for an especially good harvest...." He closed the book and took Marriette's hand.

"It is part of our job to represent these people and make sure that they are fairly treated. Yet, to represent them, we must be dressed so that our voices are heard. You will meet some of those people when you go with me in a month or so. There will be people who come to me to resolve disputes. That is their right. It is not all privilege, we have some responsibilities too."

"Though, there are those who would take the privilege without the responsibility. They say that they are born to rule while the people are born to serve. I say that rule makes us accountable for how we treat all our people."

"This sounds like an old argument," Marriette said, thinking again of the difference between her father and her husband.

"Older than I am, and unlikely to be resolved soon." He stood up, "I think I heard the bell for supper."